Simple Prayers, Simple Joys

It’s a mystery to me, how prayer affects things. How do our words move God? Is prayer like a spiritual power source that you can turn on and off like a switch? Whatever it is, it IS effective, somehow. I see mine answered, and see others’ answered for me.

Recently a friend wrote these lines to me: I have this sixth sense that you’re struggling… but I’m not sure what is causing the struggle… I pray God fills your days with simple joys and abiding contentment.

This is a little list of the many simple joys and deep contentment that have come from her prayers:

–I was working at school, alone and lonely, going bonkers with the silence. My friend called and asked if I want to meet for iced coffee. DID I?! And we even did it the cheap way–she made it and brought it to me (ice and milk, no sugar) and sat and we drank together as long as I needed to talk. Which was considerable.

–Little fingers on four little hands, using face crayons all over my hands and arms, feet and legs. I was keeping two girls quiet during a ladies’ discussion session, and found the perfect way to occupy them. I was especially proud of my multi-colored toe nails and the long striped flag on one shin. I loved watching their busy girlishness and creativity.

–A pastel sunset and tree silhouettes mirrored in the water at my favourite thinking spot. Crisp air, and two friends with me, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet.

–Laughter with my English students. Their giggles over mistakes, and amusement over new words that tickled their funny bone, like “loafer” and “flip-flop.”

–Sitting on the couch with my Polish teacher and feeling her touch my arm as she spoke. She didn’t know it, but her finger on my arm and shoulder helped me relax. Later, she fed me Polish pancakes with apples and cinnamon outside on the swing as evening fell softly around us.

–Bright smiles from strangers.

–An email message permeated with sarcasm, ended with an emoticon with the tongue sticking out. The cyber-space camaraderie felt priceless. Never thought I’d get anything from an emoticon, but what was that about prayer changing things?

Your list looks somewhat similar to my own One Thousand Gifts list by Ann Voskamp. Just curious if you are doing that too? I’m on number #308, it’s been very good for me to write down the big and little blessings God sends my way throughout a day. And then to go back and read some of them later is a great reminder of His faithfulness!

Recently

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

—

This letter was written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo to his friend, Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.